


Shattered

by LibraryMage



Series: Lost and Found [2]
Category: Star Wars: Rebels
Genre: (an incredibly messed-up father-son relationship but still), Aftermath of Torture, Alternate Universe, Father-Son Relationship, Gen, Torture, don't let Ezra's Stockholm Syndrome fool you. Maul is still a terrible parent.
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-30
Updated: 2019-04-29
Packaged: 2020-02-10 03:18:25
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 2
Words: 4,390
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18651805
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LibraryMage/pseuds/LibraryMage
Summary: Maul rescues Ezra after he's captured by the Seventh Sister.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Set about 6 months before Taking Shelter. Ezra is now 12.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> warning for: forced drug use; torture of a child

Ezra whimpered as he felt one of the Inquisitor’s probe droids crawling up his body like some sort of mechanical spider.  A sharp pain shot through his shoulder as the droid injected him again, delivering another dose of the drug that had kept Ezra immobile for days now.

As the Inquisitor knelt down beside him, her bright yellow eyes shining with amusement, Ezra didn’t bother trying to pull away.  He knew by now that it wouldn’t do any good.  Whatever she’d been dosing him with rendered him completely helpless.  He could barely even feel the Force, like it was just out of his reach.

“I think it’s almost time,” the Inquisitor said, a smile on her face as she drew her fingers down Ezra’s cheek, tracing along the scar Maul had given him long ago.  “I’ve had plenty of fun, but I’ll need to take you back to the Inquisitorius sooner or later, and you’re on your last legs.”

Her smile grew broader, as if what she’d said was funny, and Ezra was suddenly acutely aware of the wounds to the backs of his calves, and the dirt, dust, and wood splinters that were being ground into them.

“In a manner of speaking,” she said with a soft, cruel laugh.

The droid still perched on Ezra’s chest gripped his arm tightly in its metal pincers.  Ezra couldn’t even brace himself as a short, sharp burst of electricity ripped through him.  He screamed as his back arched before slamming back down to the floor.  As the current cut off, Ezra lay there, panting as he stared blankly up at the ceiling, wanting to look anywhere but at her face.

“Who knows,” she said, cupping Ezra’s chin and turning his face to one side, like she was examining him, “maybe they’ll even let me keep you.”

Her words sent a sharp chill down Ezra’s spine as his stomach tied itself in knots.

“Please,” he muttered.  “J--just kill me.”

“Believe me, I’d love to,” she said, her nails digging into his skin, drawing a gasp of pain from his lungs.  “But as much of a _pest_ as you’ve been, we’re supposed to take children in alive.”

A powerful burning sensation rose up behind Ezra’s eyes.  He knew what it was, even though he thought he’d long since outgrown it.

 _Don’t cry_ , he told himself.  _Master would hate it.  Don’t cry._

_He won't know.  He’s not coming for you.  You’re not getting out of this.  He’ll never know._

_She will.  She’d love it.  She **wants** you to cry._

“I…won't…betray him,” Ezra muttered, the words coming out between short, shallow breaths.

The Inquisitor only laughed.  She didn’t believe Ezra any more now than she had the other times he’d said the same thing.  He knew she thought that one day he’d break, that he’d turn on his master and serve the Empire.  He wouldn’t do it.  He couldn’t.  He’d rather die than --

“This should make things a little easier,” the Inquisitor said as the droid extended another needle toward Ezra’s neck.

Ezra’s heart hammered like it was trying to burst from his chest as he panicked at the thought of what another dose so soon after the last one might do to him.  He reached for the Force, desperate to defend himself, but it was still out of his reach, slipping away from him like water from his hands.  He gasped as the droid injected him again.  He hadn't thought it was possible, but his limbs felt even heavier.  His eyelids drooped as he struggled to keep them open.  He didn’t try to speak, knowing that now he probably wouldn’t even be able to.

“That’s better,” the Inquisitor said, her fingers gently caressing his face in a gesture that made his skin crawl.

 _No,_ Ezra thought.  _No no **no**._

He couldn’t let this happen.  He couldn’t let her take him back to the other Inquisitors.  But there was nothing he could do.  He couldn’t move.  He couldn’t use the Force.  He could barely even _think_ anymore.  His mind was a twisted mess of panic and desperation and denial.  There was nothing he could do now.  She was going to take him away from here and the Inquisitors would try to bend him to their will and when it didn’t work, they would just kill him.

He wasn’t going to make it out of this alive.  He had failed his master.  It was over.

It was _over_.

* * *

 

Ezra’s presence in the Force seemed to fade in and out as Maul made his way through the trees, his own signature masked so that the Inquisitor who had taken his apprentice wouldn’t sense him until it was too late.  For five days now, he'd been searching for Ezra.  He had only been able to sense the boy’s signature sporadically, as if something was cutting him off from the Force.

Now, after nearly a week of tracking Ezra, he’d found the place where the Inquisitor had taken him.  A dilapidated hut deep in the woods, likely used by hunters for shelter.  Even as he felt Ezra’s Force signature slip away again, he knew the boy was inside, and the Inquisitor was with him.

Maul’s hand closed around his lightsaber, his thumb over the activation switch.  He wasn’t going to waste another moment.

As Maul burst through the door, the Inquisitor looked up at him from where she knelt on the floor beside Ezra, a smile on her face.  She quickly stood, igniting the blades of her lightsaber and leaping at him.  Maul reached out through the Force, grabbing hold of the Inquisitor’s throat and flinging her against the wall, throwing all of the rage that burned inside of him behind the attack.  He grabbed hold of her again, throwing her against the ceiling and back into the wall.  As he released her, she crumpled to the floor, unmoving.

Maul immediately turned his gaze to Ezra, who hadn't moved or made a sound.  His eyes were barely open, his breathing slow and shallow.  His skin was covered in bruises and cuts and the distinctive burns that could only have been made by a lightsaber.  Maul felt a strange, pained feeling in his chest, and shoved it aside, refusing to acknowledge it or dwell on it.  Right now, Ezra needed him.

As he carefully lifted Ezra into his arms, he sensed the boy’s panic.  He could just barely feel Ezra’s muscles twitching as he tried to struggle.

“No,” Ezra said, his voice barely above a whisper.  “No, _please._ ”

Maul ignored Ezra’s protests and quickly carried him from the hut, moving as fast as he could while carrying the boy.  When he reached the _Nightbrother_ , Maul set Ezra down on the floor.  Ezra groaned, his eyes opening momentarily, staring blankly in front of him, before his lids lowered again.  Maul only spared a momentary glance at him before he rushed to the front of the ship and began the startup sequence.

Once the ship was out of the atmosphere and they were in hyperspace, Maul finally turned to face Ezra again.  That tight pain in his heart returned as he looked down at the boy.  If it weren’t for the slow but steady rise and fall of his chest, Maul might have thought he was dead.  He certainly looked it.

Maul retrieved an emergency blanket from the storage hatch and placed it over Ezra in a vain attempt to prevent the shivering that wracked the boy’s whole body.  Ezra didn’t react.  He simply stared blankly into the space directly in front of him, not really seeing anything.

Maul quickly turned away from the boy.  His injuries didn’t appear to be immediately life-threatening, but were so extensive that Maul couldn’t properly treat them here.  As long as Ezra remained stable, Maul could leave him in peace until they reached Orsis.

Even with the autopilot on, Maul remained at the front of the ship for most of the journey.  He only spared the occasional glance to make sure Ezra was still stable, and looked away as quickly as he could.  It wasn’t the boy or his injuries that he was trying to ignore; it was the pain in his own chest when he looked at his apprentice, broken and bleeding on the floor of the ship.  The sight of it brought out a feeling that Maul wouldn’t acknowledge or put a name to.

When the _Nightbrother_ finally touched down on the surface of Orsis, Maul steeled himself before he approached Ezra.  The boy’s motor control appeared to be coming back now that whatever drug the Inquisitor had given him was wearing off, but even so, Maul knew he wouldn’t be able to walk.  Not with those deep, burning wounds in his legs, likely inflicted to stop him from running away.

As Maul lifted Ezra into his arms, Ezra cried out.  Maul kept a firm grip on the boy as he began to struggle and carried him off of the ship.

* * *

 

Ezra could feel someone’s hands on him.  Someone was pulling him into their arms, lifting him up.  _No_.  The Inquisitor.  She’d said she was taking him to the others.  He couldn’t let it happen.  His master would never find him, if he was even looking.  He’d never escape, never go home, not if he was kept locked up and drugged and tortured.  Not if they let _her_ keep him.

Ezra cried out, weakly struggling against the arms that lifted him up, pressing against bruises and cuts and burns all over his body.

“S--stop,” he said.  “No.  I won't.”

A voice was speaking to him, words that he couldn’t understand.  But it didn’t sound like the Inquisitor.  The voice was deeper, softer, like whoever was speaking was trying to…comfort him?

It had to be a trick, or he was imagining things, inventing false comfort to cope with what was happening or hallucinating from exhaustion.

“Le--let me go,” he said, the words slurring as he forced them out clumsily.

He could feel small threads of the Force working their way through him, settling back within his reach.  The person holding him began to take on a vague shape in the Force.  It didn’t feel like the Inquisitor.  It felt like…

“M--Master?” Ezra said, forcing his eyes open.

Ezra could hear the faint sound of his master’s voice, but couldn’t make out the words he was saying.  He reached out, clinging to his master’s presence in the Force, taking comfort in how real it felt.  His master was really there.  He was finally safe.

Ezra groaned as he was laid down on something solid.  He struggled to open his eyes again and found himself surrounded by the sterile whiteness of the infirmary.  His eyes quickly closed again and he drifted in and out of consciousness, fighting to stay awake, but losing the battle over and over.

_The Inquisitor’s hand was closing around his throat, her fingernails digging indents into his skin.  Dark spots began floating in his vision as he lay there, unable to even struggle against her grip._

Ezra cried out as he felt something touch his leg.  His eyes snapped open and he saw Maul carefully wrapping a bandage around his calf, covering the burning wound left by the Inquisitor’s lightsaber.  He was barely able to grasp what he was seeing before his eyes closed again.

_The droid’s pincers were sinking into his shoulder, gripping him so tightly he could feel the bruises forming.  The low humming noise reached his ears just before the electricity coursed through his body, tearing a scream from his lungs._

Ezra whimpered as Maul took hold of his arm.  His eyes went wide with terror as he saw the hypospray Maul held in his hand.

“No,” Ezra muttered.  His heart pounded as he stared at the needle.  He was still too weak to get away or fight back.  Maul’s hand was drawing closer and closer and Ezra felt like his throat was closing up.  He couldn’t let this happen.  Not again.  But he couldn’t escape.  He couldn’t do anything but watch the needle moving closer to him, the mystery drug only inches away from being shoved into his veins.

“You need to sleep,” Maul said.  “You’ve been awake for days.”

He pressed the hypospray to Ezra’s arm and hit the trigger.  Before Ezra could even try to pull away, the needle pierced his skin.  His vision blurred and the last thing he was aware of was a gentle hand on his shoulder.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> warning for: major character injury; flashbacks to torture; self-blame after trauma; forced drug use

When Ezra woke, he quickly snapped his eyes shut again.  His heart hammered in his chest and his whole body shook as he wondered if he would open his eyes to see her standing over him, the knife or her lightsaber in her hand, staring down at him with that sadistic grin on her face.  What if he hadn't really been rescued?  What if it was a dream?  What if _she’d_ created the dream to trick him into thinking he was safe so it would just be worse when she hurt him again?

He lay there, trying to stay perfectly still, waiting.  But there was no sharp pain of a knife digging into his skin, no burning agony of a lightsaber tracing across his chest, no one touching him, no voice taunting him about how much she loved hearing him scream, about how she would take him to the others soon and he would serve them, about how one day he would kill his master for the Empire.

Slowly, Ezra opened his eyes.  He was in the infirmary on Orsis, and he was alone.  There were blankets tucked around him so tightly he could hardly move.  He frantically squirmed until they were loose enough that he could disentangle himself from them.

As he sat up, kicking the blankets off, he looked down and saw bandages covering his chest, arms, and legs, and felt more stretching across his back.  Beside the bed, he saw a pile of clothes and sighed in relief.  Moving slowly and carefully, Ezra swung his legs over the side of the bed and placed one foot on the floor, knowing that even if his injuries weren’t as bad as they looked, he would still be weak from the sedative Maul had given him.  As he shifted his weight onto his foot, pain shot through his leg.  He cried out and pulled himself back onto the bed.  So he couldn’t stand up.  Not yet.

He reached out through the Force and pulled the clothes toward him.  Getting dressed while unable to stand up and with pain and stiffness radiating through his body with almost every movement he made was a slow and difficult task, but at least he was covered up again, and he didn’t have to look at the bandages and think about the scars he knew were hidden beneath them.

Ezra lay back down on the bed and stared blankly up at the ceiling.  Unable to walk, there was nothing he could do but wait for Maul to return.

As he lay there, his mind began to drift.  As his thoughts turned back to the woods, he was able to snap himself out of it at first, but the longer he lay there, the harder it became to keep himself from thinking about it.  Lying there, he felt like his limbs were growing heavy again, like whatever the Inquisitor had drugged him with was working its way through his system.

_He tasted blood as her fist struck his face, splitting his lip open.  Her hands were closing around his throat her fingers were digging into his bruises her knife was sliding across his skin her laughter ringing in his ears…_

Ezra bit down on his lower lip, the pain jolting him out of his thoughts.  He lay there, keeping as still as he could, shaking as he stared up into the air above him.  He wasn’t back there.  He was home.  She wasn’t here.  He was safe.  He was _safe_.  He was…

His heart began racing, his breath coming in short, sharp gasps.  How long had he been lying here?  Was Maul just going to leave him here?  What if this was some kind of test, to see if he could handle being on his own after being injured like this?

Ezra sat up abruptly.  He couldn’t just keep lying here, waiting for his master to come back.  Every second he spent alone, something was screaming in his head, growing louder and more furious and terrified.

Ezra inched toward the edge of the bed again, swinging his legs down over the edge.  He could do this.  He’d worked his way through injuries before.  He could do this.

Slowly, Ezra shifted until his feet were on the floor, his weight still resting on his hands, which were braced against the edge of the bed.  He drew in a long, deep breath, steeling himself before he shifted his weight onto his feet.

He didn’t even make it one step before he collapsed to the floor.  He cried out as he crumpled into a heap, his legs burning with white-hot pain.  He bit down on the back of his hand, trying to distract himself from the agony.  He felt a sharp prickling and burning behind his eyes and bit down harder.  He wouldn’t cry.  He wouldn’t do it.  Not now.

Ezra pulled himself along the floor, managing to turn around and reach for the edge of the bed, only to find that it was _just_ too high.  He wouldn’t be able to get back onto it without help unless he could stand up.

His eyes darted around the room, looking for anything he could use to help himself, but he couldn’t see anything from his position on the floor.  Knowing he couldn’t just stay like this, Ezra began to crawl.  He didn’t dare to move his legs and instead dragged himself along the floor, desperately searching for any solution to his problem.

He was halfway across the room when the door opened.  His shoulders stiffened, his heart going cold in his chest.  He didn’t think he’d done anything wrong, but he instinctively felt like he had.

Ezra stayed perfectly still as Maul approached, his footsteps echoing through the otherwise silent room.  When he reached Ezra’s side, Ezra flinched.

“I can't stand up,” he said, his voice quiet.  As he spoke, his throat felt like it was on fire, aching and burning from day after day of screaming.

“I know,” Maul said.

Maul leaned down and lifted Ezra into his arms.  Ezra let out a sharp gasp of pain as Maul carried him across the room and laid him back down on the bed.

“You shouldn’t be trying to walk,” Maul said, his voice unusually gentle.  “Your wounds need to heal.”

“I’m sorry,” Ezra mumbled, staring blankly at the opposite wall.  He didn’t want to look at Maul.  Shame blossomed in his chest, bitter and rough, sticking to his insides like slime.

Maul’s hand rested on Ezra’s shoulder, and Ezra’s jaw trembled as that bitter feeling grew even stronger, welling up into his throat like it was trying to choke him.  He didn’t deserve that gesture of comfort or the soft, soothing feeling that flowed across the Force bond he shared with his master.

“You should keep resting,” Maul said, picking up the blanket that Ezra had kicked away and placing it back over him.

“Yes, Master,” Ezra said quietly, instinctively clutching at the blanket like it was a shield.

A knot formed in Ezra’s stomach as he pulled the blanket tight around himself.  He could vaguely remember when he was younger and he’d been severely ill.  Maul had insisted he stay in bed and had taken care of him until he was sufficiently recovered.  Ezra couldn’t remember Maul ever being as kind and gentle as he had been then.  At least not until now.  But this time it wasn’t because of an illness Ezra had no control over.  This time, he was the one who’d gotten himself captured and hadn't been able to escape.  And yet, for reasons Ezra couldn’t fathom, his master was still being kind and taking care of him.

“Ezra,” Maul said, his hand resting on Ezra’s shoulder, “I need to know, what did you tell her?”

“Nothing,” Ezra said quietly.  “She didn’t want information.  She was -- she was just having fun.”

His voice broke as he said it.  It was bad enough he’d been captured and tortured, but it had all been for nothing, too.

“She didn’t ask you any questions?”

“No,” Ezra said, his voice still shaking, picking up speed as he began to panic.  What if Maul thought he was lying?  “I swear, Master, I didn’t tell her anything.  She didn’t want to _know_ anything, she just --”

“I believe you,” Maul said, his grip on Ezra’s shoulder tightening as he cut off Ezra’s frantic explanation.

Ezra clenched his jaw, choking back a sob.  He wasn’t going to cry.  He wouldn’t let that happen.  Not now, not in front of his master, not _ever_ if he could help it.

“You’ll be alright, Ezra,” Maul said.  “You are safe now.”

“I’m sorry, Master,” Ezra said quietly, fear threading through his mind once again, even as Maul’s hand still rested protectively on his shoulder.  What was going to happen to him now?  He knew he deserved to be punished for being captured, but he was in so much pain he didn’t think he could handle it without breaking completely.  But now that he was safe, he would have to face the consequences of letting himself be caught.

“Master,” he said, his voice sounding so small he almost wanted to cringe, “please, whatever you’re going to do to me, don’t do it now.  I can't -- you know I won't fight it, but _please_ don’t do it now.”

“Don’t concern yourself with that now,” Maul said.

A flood of relief washed over Ezra as he sensed Maul’s sincerity.  Maybe he would be punished for this later, but for now, his master wasn’t going to hurt him.

“Thank you,” he said, his voice barely above a whisper.  He was so tired, but the fear of the inevitable consequences for this was making his heart pound so faster by the second, even with Maul’s assurance that he wouldn’t be punished now.

Before Ezra realized what was happening, he felt Maul take hold of the collar of his shirt and pull it aside until his shoulder was exposed.

“What --”

Ezra barely had a chance to get even one word out before a hypospray was pressed against his shoulder.  Almost immediately, his eyelids grew heavy and the pounding in his chest began to slow down.  Maul’s hand disappeared from his shoulder and he turned away to leave.

“Wait,” Ezra said, his voice weak and shaky as the sedative slowly words its way through his system.

Even in his drugged, injured, mentally shattered state, something in the back of Ezra’s mind screamed at him not to say it.  It was bad enough he’d already been captured, had already been injured, was battered and broken to the point that he couldn’t even walk on his own and had needed his master to _carry_ him like a child.  Saying this was an unforgiveable display of weakness.  He’d be punished for it, and he’d deserve it.  He couldn’t.  He couldn’t say it…

“Please s--stay.”

Ezra felt like his throat was closing up under the force of his own fear.  He shouldn’t have said anything.  He tried to speak again to take it back, try to excuse it as the drugs making him lose control of himself, but before he could, Maul’s hand rested on his shoulder again.

As Ezra’s eyes closed, he felt that soft pulse of reassurance through their bond.  He was safe now.

He was finally safe.

* * *

 

The moment he sensed that Ezra was asleep, Maul drew his hand away from the boy’s shoulder as if he’d been burned.  He wasn’t sure why he’d chosen to stay until Ezra fell asleep.  His first instinct had been to strike the boy, to tell him that his injuries didn’t excuse his weakness.  But something about the sight of Ezra’s bruised face and wide, terrified eyes had stopped him from doing it.

Maul had sensed Ezra’s fear as he’d spoken.  He was terrified that he was going to be hurt for asking Maul to stay, and for being captured in the first place.

When Maul was Ezra’s age, he certainly would have been punished if he’d been taken prisoner by an enemy.  Sidious never would have come to rescue him, and would have left him to die.  If he’d managed to escape on his own, that wouldn’t have saved him from his former master’s wrath.

But the scars covering Ezra’s body, in particular the wounds to his legs that kept him confined to a bed, were more than enough.  Maul knew he didn’t need to punish Ezra any further for being captured by the Inquisitor.  And the thought of doing so turned his heart to ice.

He didn’t know when he’d begun to care this much for the boy, but seeing him lying on the floor of that place, covered in his own blood, Maul had felt the same fury he’d felt as he knelt beside Savage while he took his last breaths, as he’d watched Talzin be cut down by Grievous.  He’d reminded himself so often over the years that Ezra was _not_ his child, was nothing more than his apprentice; a young, eager mind for him to shape into what he needed.  But seeing him wounded so badly, almost losing him, had shattered what remained of that illusion.

Maul spared another glance down at Ezra.  His eyes were twitching rapidly beneath his lids, and as Maul watched, Ezra let out a quiet, pained whimper.  Something tightened around Maul’s heart, rage flaring in his chest.  This was his _son_.  The Inquisitor had taken his child and reduced him to _this_.

Maul reached out, his hand covering Ezra’s for a moment.  He could sense Ezra’s fear fade briefly before it returned in full force.

“You’re safe now, son,” he said, for once allowing himself to use that word without regretting it.  “One day, you’ll have your revenge.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Kinda hate that I ended this in Maul's POV but that's where the story went I guess :/


End file.
